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Germany moved up to fourth place on the World Economic Forum's ranking of the world's most competitive economies, driven by investment in science and technology approaching 3% of gross domestic product. Federal funding for research has increased by 60% since 2005, but those gains are threatened by concerns over debt and aid payments to other European Union member states.

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Advances in genome sequencing technology are allowing researchers to study why some patients respond well to treatments that fail in others with the same disease. The research could lead to new uses for existing and abandoned compounds, researchers say. Projects are planned or underway at the National Cancer Institute, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, among others.

Calico, a new venture by Google, aims to develop technologies to address life-threatening and age-related diseases. Former Genentech chairman Arthur Levinson will lead the new firm, which will be run separately from Google.

Opportunities to identify cures for cancer and other diseases, as well as jobs and a chance to maintain global competitiveness have already been lost to the sequester, panelists said at a recent Research!America forum. "That is research that could have been the next cure for cancer or the next Nobel Prize. But we'll never know," NIH Director Francis Collins said. The sequester has reduced and strained resources at the FDA and CDC, threatening public health and slowing innovation, agency directors said.

Progress can be made against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis if governments and market forces work together, Eli Lilly and Co. CEO John Lechleiter writes. Public-private efforts such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria can lessen the threat of drug-resistant TB and alleviate the burden of all three diseases, he writes.

The human body may contain groups of cells with mutations that are not found in the rest of the body as well as genomes that came from undeveloped twins, and mothers may carry genomes from their babies, scientists say. Multiple genomes may give rise to diseases, and the findings have implications for precision medicine.